105:15 saying, 1 “Don’t touch my chosen 2 ones!
Don’t harm my prophets!”
105:1 Give thanks to the Lord!
Call on his name!
Make known his accomplishments among the nations!
2:1 Why 5 do the nations rebel? 6
Why 7 are the countries 8 devising 9 plots that will fail? 10
1 tn The word “saying” is supplied in the translation for clarification and for stylistic reasons.
2 tn Heb “anointed.”
3 sn Psalm 105. The psalmist summons Israel to praise God because he delivered his people from Egypt in fulfillment of his covenantal promises to Abraham. A parallel version of vv. 1-15 appears in 1 Chr 16:8-22.
4 sn Psalm 2. In this royal psalm the author asserts the special status of the divinely chosen Davidic king and warns the nations and their rulers to submit to the authority of God and his chosen vice-regent.
5 tn The question is rhetorical. Rather than seeking information, the psalmist expresses his outrage that the nations would have the audacity to rebel against God and his chosen king.
6 tn The Hebrew verb רָגַשׁ (ragash) occurs only here. In Dan 6:6, 11, 15 the Aramaic cognate verb describes several officials acting as a group. A Hebrew nominal derivative is used in Ps 55:14 of a crowd of people in the temple.
7 tn The interrogative לָמָּה (lamah, “why?”) is understood by ellipsis in the second line.
8 tn Or “peoples” (so many English versions).
9 tn The Hebrew imperfect form describes the rebellion as underway. The verb הָגָה (hagah), which means “to recite quietly, meditate,” here has the metonymic nuance “devise, plan, plot” (see Ps 38:12; Prov 24:2).
10 tn Heb “devising emptiness.” The noun רִיק (riq, “emptiness”) may characterize their behavior as “worthless, morally bankrupt” but more likely refers to the outcome of their plots (i.e., failure). As the rest of the psalm emphasizes, their rebellion will fail.